Caregiver Support

In some places schools may not yet be completely open and keeping up with the education of children who have special needs can be daunting. Parents are trying to figure out how to balance working, teaching, supervising, and providing therapies for their children. For caregivers, here are some helpful tips.

• Create a routine or schedule. You can ask your children’s school to help create a schedule based on their typical day at school.
• Use pictures to help explain the schedule. Visual schedules can help kids to know what to expect and can be helpful for kids who have a difficult time understanding verbal directions.
• Be flexible.
• Take care of yourself.

View our interview with an Occupational Therapist and Simons Searchlight parent on how she is handling her child’s therapies from home.

Below are various websites with activities that are aimed at childhood development.

Pathways is a resource for parents to help describe children’s developmental stages and lists games, videos, and other resources based on different abilities of your child.

OT Plan has occupational therapy ideas that can be done at home.

TEIS Early Intervention and Vroom have activities that children can do to help develop different skills at home.

Go Noodle has a collection of movement and mindfulness videos targeted for kids and designed by experts in child development.

View our short webinar on visual schedules and how this might help your child navigate their day at home.

Click here to get more information on how a visual schedule can help with communication between you and your child, how you can make story strips for your child and help them with reciprocal communication.

Helpful Resources